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I don’t know anything about infectious diseases. But I’ll say one thing for certain — the Coronavirus is killing a lot of peoples’ sales.

Companies that rely on trade shows for business are naturally being hit worst of all. But with an increasing number of people working remotely and normal operations being disrupted, it’s safe to say that ‘buying stuff’ isn’t high up the priority list for most organizations.

So what are we — as marketing people — supposed to DO when all around us grinds to a halt?

My thoughts are simple. If nobody is buying anything RIGHT NOW, simply take the time to prepare for the time when life returns to normal. Because it WILL return to normal. Just like it did after Swine flu, Avian flu, SARS, and the financial crisis.

I’ve just got off the phone with a customer who compared the situation to the Christmas period. I think that’s a great analogy.

We all know that nobody really does — or, more importantly, BUYS — anything between early December and early January, so we act accordingly. We take time to work on things that usually get ignored, and prepare marketing content that can be launched once life returns to normal.

Throughout the year, most of us focus mainly on tactical marketing — product launches, content campaigns, and so on. But since now isn’t really the time to focus on short-term sales, I’d suggest shifting your focus to what I call STRUCTURAL marketing.

Things like:

Getting your website copy in order and dialing in your overall messaging.

Producing a large, cornerstone content piece like a research report or white paper. (These usually takes a month or two to complete anyway).

Before I got side-tracked thinking about the Coronavirus, today’s email was going to be all about that third bullet — autoresponders. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically a series of automatic emails that are triggered by a specific event.

For example, if a prospect downloads one of your white papers, they might receive a series of 5-12 emails over a period of days or weeks that guide them through the next steps. Naturally, these emails should feed into the normal sales follow-up process, and be designed to dispel some of the common objections faced by your sales team.

Now, autoresponders have been around forever, but for some reason, they have poor uptake with B2B companies. That’s crazy to me because they are so easy to set up and can potentially yield benefits for years without ANY further input from your marketing team.

Among other things, autoresponders can be used to:

Initiate stable, long-term relationships with prospects.

Promote other relevant content downloads.

Bring more visitors to your cornerstone blog posts and/or web pages.

Push prospects along the sales funnel and prepare them for sales calls.

In our world, there are very few content pieces that offer such a high reward for so little upfront effort.

So while the world is going crazy, why not take the time to focus on something that could benefit your marketing machine for YEARS to come? And if you’d like to talk about how you could build autoresponders into your marketing program, hit me up.

One of the most common questions I get from new customers is, “What do you see working right now in my industry?”

Now, of course, I can’t and won’t speak about what specific customers are doing. But when I have a broad view of an industry, as I do in cyber security, IT services, and a couple of others, I CAN talk more generally about the types of content that are performing well.

But the thing is, regardless of the industry, the answer is almost always the same:

The more specific and personalized the content, the more (and higher quality) leads it produces. Or, if we’re talking about bottom-of-funnel content, the more effective it is at creating sales.

So how do you make content more personalized? There are quite a few options, but the simplest is to make it industry-specific.

Naturally, most businesses are wary of creating this kind of highly-focused content. After all, there’s a chance it won’t perform, and they’ll have wasted resources creating it.

But here’s the thing. Every business I’ve worked with that has tested industry-specific content (and did it well) has seen strong results. Every. Single. One.

What do I mean by “doing it well”?

Simple. Strong industry-specific content is NOT simply boilerplate content with a 1-page industry-specific introduction slapped on the front. It has to be created specifically for a target industry, and clearly demonstrate that you have a thorough understanding of that industry’s challenges and pain points.

That doesn’t mean you can’t recycle content, but it DOES mean you can’t ‘phone it in’ — you have to make a concerted effort to create genuinely valuable industry-specific content.

Yes, it requires time, thought, and research. And no, it isn’t absolutely guaranteed to work.

But, of all the content I have produced in the last six years or so (and it’s literally thousands of projects) industry-specific content stands out as some of the most impactful I have ever written.

Needless to say, if you’re considering producing personalized content and would appreciate a helping hand, you know where to find me.

If you’re a regular reader of blogs, listener of podcasts, or consumer of social media, you’ll be well acquainted with one of the biggest issues of our time: barrel-scraping content.

You know what I’m talking about. This is the social media influencer making a video about their trip to Costco. Or a podcaster bringing the same guest on for the ninth time. Or a blogger going over the same concept they’ve discussed dozens of times before, pretending like they have some new perspective on it.

As soon as you see the title of their latest content piece, you know it’s just a desperate attempt to retain your attention… even though they’ve long past the point at which they had nothing left to say.

Needless to say, as serious marketers, you can NEVER fall into this trap.

In recent newsletters, I’ve shared a couple of tips on how to come up with content ideas. If you follow them, you should find it much easier (and less stressful) to identify good topics to write about without constantly harping on the same 2-3 concepts.

Added to that, everyone on this list is in some form of B2B technology field. That’s great, because there are ALWAYS new and interesting things happening in B2B technology.

But having things to say is only part one of the solution… and it’s not enough.

Even if your content is fresh and interesting, you can still fall into the trap of LOOKING LIKE you don’t have anything new to say.

How? By writing boring or unclear headlines.

For years now, marketing blogs and courses have constantly harped on the idea that headlines are simple things. Just plug the relevant words into a headline template and you’ll have a winner every time. Sadly, this stopped being true several years ago, largely because the traditional headline formulas have been so badly abused by BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, Business Insider, and every other major blog going.

Now, readers are so accustomed to the basic headline formulas that they barely even notice them.

So here’s an alternative from the minds of two of the driving forces behind modern advertising copywriting: Bill Bonner and Michael Masterton.

(Headlines have to be strong in the advertising world, or the ads don’t make money)

Instead of a plug-and-play formula, write headlines that conform to the “Four U’s”: Urgent, Useful, Unique, and Ultra-specific.

When I speak to a prospective new customer, one of the questions I’m often asked is:

“What are we doing wrong?”

There are a bunch of answers to this question, of course. Some turn up regularly. Others are unique to a specific business. But there’s one mistake that practically every company makes… and it represents a HUGE wasted opportunity.

What’s the mistake? Relegating older content assets to the ‘Resources’ page, never to be seen again.

In most cases, these assets are never promoted again, are rarely (if ever) referenced.

The resources page is a graveyard for white papers, case studies, and other content pieces that have committed the cardinal sin of no longer being ‘new’. Put another way, it’s where content goes to die. Once a piece of content passes about the 4th or 5th position on the resources page (let alone when it gets pushed off the first page) it’s pretty much dead. And its lead gen potential dies along with it.

This cycle happens at nearly every company that invests in content marketing. And all the while, they continue to publish blog articles, social media posts, and email campaigns on the SAME SUBJECTS… and don’t include CTAs to download, watch, or listen to those older content assets.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I’m concerned, ungated content has three purposes:

Spread “awareness” and goodwill. (This is woolly at best, and totally unmeasurable)

Bring people to your website from search, social, email, and so on.

Most importantly, to convince people to sign up for gated content.

The trouble is, if #3 doesn’t happen, #1 and #2 are close to pointless. What is the point of attracting somebody to your website if they leave and never come back?

This is why I firmly believe that EVERY blog post should end with a natural CTA that signposts readers to the next logical step on their journey. It could be a white paper, a case study, a free demo, a sales conversation, or even another blog post. But it has to be SOMETHING.

Under no circumstances should somebody be allowed to visit your website and read something WITHOUT being told (nicely and helpfully) where to go next.

All copywriters are, at some stage in their career, given the following advice (the wording here is mine, but the concept is as old as the hills):

“Take your reader by the hand, and guide them through their journey. Never make them guess what to do next. Never leave them out in the cold. And NEVER assume the next step is ‘obvious’.”

This is EXACTLY how content marketing should work. Free content leads to gated content, which in turn leads to targeted (and helpful) sales messaging. This process can be super simple, but it has to exist. If it doesn’t, you could be losing thousands of leads each year and not even knowing it.

And now, of course, I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t finish this post with some sort of relevant CTA. So here it is:

One of the services I’ve started offering in the last year or so is a full content audit. Simply, I review your entire content catalog (web page content, white papers, case studies, blog articles, etc.) and provide detailed feedback and recommendations. If you’ve ever wondered:

“Is our messaging clearly articulated?”

“Are we doing a good job on our CTAs?”

“Could our squeeze/landing pages be more effective?”

“Are we promoting our content effectively?”

“Are we missing any opportunities?”

“Are there are topics we could be writing about that we aren’t currently?”

…I can help you answer those questions. All you have to do is get in touch today.

Never before in history have companies been hounded by so many marketers simultaneously. Wherever they turn — from social media to events, search engines, and email — there are literally thousands of marketers vying for their attention.

Naturally, after a while, people become inured to all the noise. They just stop paying attention.

As marketers, it’s our job to jolt prospects out of their normal routines… because those routines include ignoring everything we’re trying to tell them. And to do that, we have to constantly come up with new, attention-grabbing ideas.

A few years ago, you could get attention by using a few “marketing power words” and writing halfway interesting content headers and email subject lines. But now EVERYBODY is using those words and has at least some idea how to put together an interesting header.

Put simply, the goalposts have moved. And so has the language we have to use to get attention.

Think about some of the most common content marketing tropes:

The such-and-such PLAYBOOK

The ULTIMATE GUIDE to yadda-yadda

The something-or-other CHEAT SHEET

When marketers first started using these terms, they worked well. They were new, different, and interesting. Consequently, they grabbed the attention of potential customers.

But now? They sound played out. And they get TUNED out by most people.

So what’s next? Well first, I’ll tell you what ISN’T next. What you absolutely shouldn’t do — even though you’ll see some people doing it — is using “crazy”, “shocking”, or “weird” headers just to get your email opened or your ebook downloaded. (Yes, people even do this in B2B)

I’ll give you an example.

Imagine I sent you an email with the subject line “Hey look, a ferret!” … and then I never made any reference to ferrets in the email. Or (even worse) I started the email with something like “Now that I’ve got your attention…”

Wouldn’t you feel insulted? Or, at the very least, like I’d intentionally deceived you just to get your attention? People don’t appreciate this. In fact, if you go back and read direct response marketing literature from 100 years ago, you’ll discover that people have NEVER liked this approach.

You can use crazy and interesting headers — but ONLY if you find a way to directly and logically tie them to the body of your content.

But that’s enough about what you shouldn’t do. What you SHOULD do is constantly look for ways to make your content stand out from the crowd.

Test words that other marketers don’t use. Test content header and body formats that other markers don’t use. Do everything you can to make your content look different to all the rest. Ideally, create a content style and format that’s unique to your company and makes it hard for others to copy you — because believe me, people WILL try to copy you once they see you’re doing things differently.

No, it isn’t easy. It’s certainly not a quick fix. You have to be willing to continually adapt your language and messaging to avoid sounding like everybody else.

But here’s the good news. This IS an outstanding way to consistently get attention in an extremely crowded industry. And over time, it can help you build up a great deal of respect and goodwill with your audience (namely, your prospects and customers).

If you need some help figuring out how to make your content stand out from the crowd, just get in touch.

Just about every marketer on the planet these days claims to be “data-driven”.

And that sounds like a good thing. After all, data doesn’t lie, right?

Well here’s the thing. In the dim and distant past — back before I was a copywriter — I was a data analyst. So I know a thing or two about data. And you wouldn’t BELIEVE what you can make data “say” if you put your mind to it.

But that’s a story for another day.

For now, I don’t want to talk about the quality of marketing data, or even the accuracy of marketing metrics. Instead, I want to talk about something more fundamental: metrics that matter… and metrics that don’t.

Here’s an example.

Imagine you write two blog posts. One gets viewed thousands of times and shared all over social media. The other does OK, but no real fireworks. Which post was more valuable?

The answer is: “Who knows?” Without more information, there’s no evidence that either post contributed ANYTHING to the company’s bottom line.

Did either post prompt any email signups? Or contact form submissions? Or some other desireable action? Or did they just stir up some interest for a few hours and then subside?

If they DID inspire a few email signups… what’s that worth? For each new subscriber, what’s the average dollars-and-cents value to the company?

Let’s take another example.

Everybody knows that email converts better than practically every other marketing channel. Even when it doesn’t — which is rare — it still has easily the best ROI. So naturally, marketers want to track the effectiveness of their email campaigns.

So what’s the first thing they track? Open rates.

Now, there are two problems here. First, when it comes to accuracy, open rate tracking lies somewhere on the spectrum between finger-in-the-air guessing and honest-to-gosh divination. There are just too many problems with open rate tracking for it to be in any way reliable or useful. And second, once again, open rates have no bearing on real-world factors like sales or signups.

And if at this point you’re thinking: “OK wise guy, so what SHOULD we be tracking?!” … the answer is actually pretty simple. You should track anything that can be directly linked to a specific outcome that has clearly defined value to the company.

(Generally, that means money, but occasionally there might be some other motivation)

Now don’t get me wrong. I DO appreciate that this stuff isn’t as easy in the B2B world as it is for B2C companies. In B2C (in a best-case example) you send an email, readers follow a tracked link to a sales page, and some of them buy. That’s about as simple as life gets for a marketer.

In B2B, we nearly always have to rely on sales teams to close, so we’re a step further away from the “money shot”. But that doesn’t mean we can’t claim some of that value for ourselves.

Let’s say you checked the data for the last 12 months and discovered that for every 850 new leads added to your email list, one gets converted into a $10,000 sale. That’s great. Now you know that the value of one lead is equal to $10,000 / 850 = $11.76

Yes, this is a simplistic example. And of course, if your email marketing is good, it should influence the conversion rate. That change not always easy to measure, but it can be done (or at least estimated).

OK, next question. How much does it cost to generate one of those leads?

You can see where this is going, can’t you?

Of course, the answer will vary for different prospecting techniques. Blog posts will have one value, social media another, paid ads another, and so on. But until you have a mathematically sound system in place to check, it’s very difficult to figure out which are your most cost (and time) effective marketing channels.

I’d wager that if more B2B marketers did this, a lot of social media activity would dry up overnight. But again, that’s a subject for another day.

So there you have it. Metrics that matter… and metrics that don’t. The specifics vary from company to company — the principle remains the same for everybody.

By the way, I saw a post on LinkedIn the other day from somebody bemoaning the fact that marketing is always first on the chopping block when times get tough. Apparently, he’d heard that two talented senior marketers had been laid off within a few days of each other because their companies were struggling. He said it shouldn’t be that way, because marketing contributes to company success.

To which I say…. Can you PROVE it?

I bet those two marketers couldn’t. They might be hugely talented, but if they can’t prove the value they add, they’ll never be secure.

Harsh? Yes. Fair? Perhaps not. True? Yup.

And on that cheery note, I’ll wrap up for today. I hope you’re having a great start to 2020. If you have any upcoming projects you need support with, just hit the reply button.

P.S. What’s your experience with email marketing? In my biased opinion, right now in the B2B tech world, the average standard of email marketing is FAR below that of every other major marketing channel. Companies spend hugely on SEO trying to get to the top of Google’s organic search results… but then have the company intern write their email newsletter. If I had to guess, I’d say “winning” at email would be incredibly easy just now for most B2B tech niches.

P.P.S. Another thing I rarely hear discussed in B2B marketing is the value of owning your own media. This is a very common topic in the entrepreneurial world. If you go all-in on SEO, then one algorithm change can ruin years of hard work. If you go all-in on social media, an update or two can destroy your reach. But if you go all-in on email (or some other channel where you OWN everything you create — your email list, in this case) nobody can take it away from you.